1 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
8 <h1>The JabRef main window</h1>
10 <p><em>Note:</em> most menu actions
11 referred in the following have keyboard shortcuts, and many are
12 available from the toolbar. The keyboard shortcuts are found in
13 the pull-down menus.</p>
15 <p>This is the main window from where you work with your
16 databases. Below the menubar and the toolbar is a tabbed pane
17 containing a panel for each of your currently open databases.
18 When you select one of these panels, a table appears, listing
19 all the database's entries, as well as a configurable selection
23 <li>You decide which fields are shown in the table by
24 checking the fields you want to see in the
25 <strong>Preferences</strong> dialog.</li>
27 <li>Double-click a line of the table to edit the entry
28 content. You can navigate the table with the arrow
31 <li>The table is sorted according to a set of fields of
32 your choosing. The default sort order is set up in
33 <strong>Preferences -> Entry table</strong>, but to
34 quickly change the order, click the header of a column to
35 set it as the primary sort criterion, or reverse the
36 sorting if it is already set. Another click will deselect
37 the column as sorting criterion. Hold down <b>CONTROL</b>
38 and click a column to add, reverse or remove it as a
39 sub-criterion after the primary column. You can add an
40 arbitrary number of sub-criteria.</li>
42 <li>Adjust the width of each column by dragging the borders
43 between their headers.</li>
45 <li>In the <strong>Preferences</strong> dialog, toggle
46 whether the table should be resized to fit the window.
47 Enable this to ensure visibility of the whole table, and
48 disable it to make room for displaying more
52 Color codes can be toggled in the
53 <strong>Preferences</strong> dialog, and they help you
54 visualize the completeness of your database by coloring
58 <li>A <font color="red">red</font> cell in the
59 leftmost column denotes an incomplete entry.</li>
61 <li>A <font color="#909000">yellow</font> cell in
62 the leftmost column denotes an entry that doesn't
63 define all required fields by itself, but that
64 contains a cross-reference.</li>
66 <li>A <font color="blue">blue</font> cell denotes a
69 <li>A <font color="green">green</font> cell denotes
70 an optional field.</li>
72 <li>An uncolored cell denotes a field which is not
73 used by the <em>bibtex</em> program for this type
74 of entry. The field can still be edited in
80 <h2>Adding a new entry</h2>
82 <p>There are several ways to add a new
83 entry. The <strong>New entry</strong> menu action shows a
84 dialog where you can choose the type of the entry from a list.
85 To bypass this dialog, there are also separate menu actions for
86 each entry type, and keyboard shortcuts for the most common
89 <p>When a new entry is added, by default an
90 <a href="EntryEditorHelp.html">editor dialog</a> for the entry
91 will be opened. This behaviour can be toggled in the
92 <strong>Preferences</strong> dialog.</p>
94 <p><em>Note:</em> We strongly recommend learning the shortcuts
95 for the entry types you use most often, e.g. CTRL-SHIFT-A for
96 adding an <em>article</em> entry.</p>
98 <h2>Editing an entry</h2>
101 <a href="EntryEditorHelp.html">editor dialog</a> for an
102 existing entry, simply double-click anywhere on the appropriate
103 line will open the <a href="EntryEditorHelp.html">editor
104 dialog</a> (or select the entry and press ENTER).</p>
106 <h2>Referencing a <em>bibtex</em> string in a field</h2>
108 <p>In JabRef you write the contents of all fields the same way as you
109 would in a text editor, with one exception: to reference a
110 string, enclose the name of the string in a set of #
111 characters, e.g.:<br>
112 '#jan# 1997',<br>
113 which will be interpreted as the string named 'jan' followed by
116 <p>See also: <a href="StringEditorHelp.html">string editor</a>.